


and he feels like home

by deandratb



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28106313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Jennifer and Deacon discuss the voices in her head.
Relationships: Deacon/Jennifer Goines
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: 12 Days of Ficlets





	and he feels like home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BoaJones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoaJones/gifts).



> Day 2 of 12 Days of Ficlets. Prompt: **"It doesn’t bother me."**

Philadelphia winters felt even colder in 2046 than the ones Jennifer was used to. She had started letting herself into Deacon’s room at night, taking advantage of how much warmer he was--like her very own heated blanket in the spartan Raritan accommodations.

“Loud tonight,” she muttered as she laid down next to him and settled in.

“The wind?” He couldn’t hear it this deep into the building, but Jennifer was so sensitive, he wouldn’t have put it past to her to pick up on things like that.

“No. The voices.” She rubbed at her temples, trying to focus on the sensation of Deacon’s hands rubbing her arms where she had goosebumps. 

“Are they whispering apocalypse again?”

His tone was mild, but she knew him too well to buy it. Deacon worried for all of them, even when he pretended to be a careless asshole. 

“No. They’re not always talking about Cole or time travel. Don’t stop, though. The tick-tick-ticking is constant, the way time is constant.”

“That doesn’t sound like a party.” He wrapped his arms around her from behind, lacing his fingers through hers and giving Jennifer the pleasant feeling of being swallowed up by a Deacon cocoon. 

“It’s not.” Even the worst birthday party she had, the first after her mother was sent away, didn’t feel as unending and exhausting as the voices. “I know, I should be grateful they’re keeping me company. And helping keep us alive.”

“Hey.” He kissed her shoulder, where just a little skin was bared. “You didn’t ask to be a Primary. You get to feel however you want about it.”

“Sometimes I’m grateful. A lot of the time,” she corrected herself. “But nights like tonight, I just want there to be less noise in my head.”

Jennifer wriggled out of his grip to turn around and face him. “I want to be here with you sometimes and not also thinking about the 1940s or mass murderers or the Red Forest.”

“You are here with me.”

“Am, but not. Here, but there. Girl interrupted. Me and my loud brain are like...a timeshare girlfriend.”

That made him laugh. “Wow, I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone use that word.”

“Timeshare?”

He shook his head. “I've got no clue what that is.”

“Oh. Right.” Sometimes, speaking the same pop culture language made it easy for Jennifer to forget how different Deacon’s life had been from hers. 

She tried again. “Girlfriend?”

“Yeah. Social niceties kinda went out the window with the plague. Doesn’t make as much sense to label your relationship when humanity’s dying.”

“Right.” She looked away, as if that would hide the fact that her eyes were getting glassy, and Deacon frowned.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad word. Just not one I’ve ever used, before.”

“Does it fit?”

“Us?” 

Knowing she needed it, Deacon considered her question seriously for a moment. Then he nodded. “If it’s who you want to be, to me, it fits. I want you around--I don’t care what we call it.”

“Even though I’m not always here. Even though I stop making sense, and the voices send us down the wrong trail, and everybody else calls me crazy?”

“Yeah. Even though.”

Deacon grinned at the look on her face, skepticism warring with hope. Jennifer still didn’t always believe him; that he cared about her, that she mattered. But his attempts to convince her were making slow progress. 

“The voices are part of you. And I like you. Why would I care what anybody else thinks?”

“So...it doesn’t bother you if I can’t drown them out sometimes, or I’m not fully yours?”

“You don’t have to be mine. You just have to be Jennifer.”

Deacon kissed her, drawing it out until he almost forget they’d been speaking. She was flushed when he pulled back. 

“And, no. It doesn’t bother me.”

He pulled her close, letting her nestle her face into the warmth of his chest, tugging his coat around her. 

“Nothing about you does.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Long Story Short" by Taylor Swift.


End file.
